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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: GadgetMaster on May 30, 2002, 07:57:36 PM
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Eyetech has an update on their website regarding the AmigaOne SE and their plans for an XE (read $1000 G4) model:
Here (http://www.eyetech.co.uk/amigaone/300502update.php)
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I was gonna post that!! :-P
Never mind, good news though. The trade in offer sound pretty sweet.
Cheers and Beers :pint: :pint:,
Graham C
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[opinion]
I wont bother with the slot characteristics, CPU upgradeable boards dont make economic sense. If I buy it it will be to run a G5 on it but I expect board technology will be improved by then.
Dave.
[opinion]
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Trade in offer sounds really good. the 75% though "trade in of current retail price" would prolly be closer to 50% ish of what the price was when ya bought it as 4+ months on, we may see a drop in price on it.
Still pretty good though. :-)
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I think this trade in offer shows eyetech and Amiga's commitment to the community/fair play and a williness to make things work
could u see microsoft offering such a deal
:-)
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""The prototype socketed AmigaOne-XE board and the associated plug-in G3 and G4 modules have already been built and tested.""
very cool.... very.... so we will have a G4 amiga soon..
well soon compared to how long we usually have to wait :-D
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Good news, shame about the price!!!!!1 :-P
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It sounds realy great :o)
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I missed that $1000 part in the article. I saw the £200 more part (£550 in total for the board), which comes out at around $800 though, with a 700MHz G4. However this all depends on G4 pricing at the time (in 6 months time I imagine) and availablity, it could be cheaper, or it could be faster, or whatever.
But the trade-in offer is generous, but yes, "at current retail prices" doesn't mean "at purchase price", although it should mean a lot of good low-price G3-SE systems on the market early next year for a lot less money.
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Mmmmm, Dual G4. My mouth waters just thinking about the possibilities.
One would think Motorola would welcome the added business and make extra Amiga-dedicated PPC chips. Okay, one would HOPE. :-)
Either way, I agree, the incentives set on the table by Eyetech make it worth picking up a G3 right now, although I don't know if I'd actually get rid of it once the G4s come out.
AmiGod
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"The AmigaOneG3-SE will not be shipped to end users until OS4 is ready, but boards for OS4 developers and beta testers are already out in the field. "
?They are?, red, coder, and the other's ain't jumpin through the roof. I would not call sending a few to Hyperion and some other people as having boards for beta testers in the field :-x
:-P Wait some one in europe check behind Eyetech, mabey they've hidden them out in some farmers field :-D
Well these are a long ways off, guess they've got time for G4's to become available
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They have sent out 150 of these boards, which are probably arriving right now, or within the next week or two. Well, that is what I have been led to believe.
With the upgrade path, it makes purchasing the current AmigaOneSE a much safer thing, unless Eyetech drop the RRP down to $100 or so when the AmigaOneXE comes out and you only get a $75 rebate... I imagine the RRP would drop to $250 at the minimum however.
Hopefully AmigaOS4 will be shipping in a couple of months. Things appear to be coming together at the moment.
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im at a loss for words, therefore "SHWEEET!" i say.
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Now no-one in my belief can fault Eyetech's sense of fairness. I myself would have chosen a much more cynical marketing plan - release the SE first without telling anyone about the XE, then release the XE 6 months later: the result - selling more boards, since those with SEs with feel obliged to upgrade. In other words, industry standard tactics.
The XE looks nice too. With the introduction of an an easy-upgradable CPU, the advantage of the Pegasos board disappears. Eyetech made a good choice in selecting cheap (relatively cheap!), disposable boards, despite what the flamers have said.
I wonder what the MOS folks have to say. I'm sure I'll soon find out, eh Kronos ;-)
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Hi,
I think this is very good news but I guess I must be missing something so I will ask everyone here. Considering that the PPC G3 and associated motherboard is such a huge leap above the 68060, and there is limited software written natively in PPC code, is there really that big of an advantage of waiting for a G4 board? I see the Amiga One SE as a great value and a huge jump in performance. Why would I wait for the XE?
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Call me stupid, but I don't understans this bit:
we, and the majority of other AmigaOne dealers, will underwrite a trade-in value of your AmigaOneG3-SE during a period of 6 and 12 months after its purchase against the purchase of a new AmigaOne-XE with single G4 cpu module
What do they mean "underwrite"? I relise that they are offering a trade-in but don't quite understand the term!
Looking good tho! Now all we need is for Hyperion to post a list of all the features that they are going to put in OS4.0 and maybe even put a "tick" by the ones that they have finished so we know how much further we have to go :-)
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i think its just another way of saying that they agree to one trading it in, giving a buyer a sense of security in which they can feel at ease knowing they can buy the SE and trade it in as a discount for the XE when it comes out, because it will be available relatively soon afterwards. just substitute 'underwrite' with 'agree to'.
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?They are?, red, coder, and the other's ain't jumpin through the roof.
Well THEY announced it so I suppose I can speak:-) YES there are boards in the field. No i do not have mine :-(
Patience grasshopper ;-)
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@Jumpship:
[opinion/educated guess]
;-) I suspect "underwrite" means that Eyetech will be supporting the trade-in policy financially. That is, you take your old G3 board to your local dealer to trade it in on your new G4, and your dealer sends it on to Eyetech if no one in your area is buying the old boards. This way your local dealer isn't forced to buy back boards he cannot sell. Or something. Maybe.
[/opinion/educated guess]
:-D Still, looks good!
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I have a feeling that RSN we will be hearing from Amiga Inc.
The pressure is building behind the dam...
Hey what gives at ANN.... I mean AFF..
:-D
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I think it is even better for than that.
What they are doing is garanteeing a good secondary market for the AmigaOne G3. I doubt that everyone will trade their boards straight up but it sets the "minimum price" that the boards will go down to.
It also means that Eyetech will have a good reason to keep the original G3's in service (will they resell the traded ones again at a discout???)..
Regards
Darren
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@KennyR
"Now no-one in my belief can fault Eyetech's sense of fairness. I myself would have chosen a much more cynical marketing plan - release the SE first without telling anyone about the XE, then release the XE 6 months later: the result - selling more boards, since those with SEs with feel obliged to upgrade. In other words, industry standard tactics."
I don't want to piss in anyone's beer, but you might say the announcement is a cynical marketing ploy. By announcing a trade-in price now the obvious aim is to encourage those who might have been tempted to wait for the promised G4 system to buy a G3 Amiga NOW, as they would be getting most of their money back in the trade-in.
You ought to ask youself: and when will the XE be available? Will it be 6 months, 12 months, more?...
Will the XE be launched before AOS4 is completed? If not - and I suggest that would be unlikely - how long before AOS4 is released?
Not that I blame Eyetech. From a business and marketing point of view the announcement is the smart thing to do, and Alan is nobody's fool.
[makes a grab for the asbestos suit on the way out :-D]
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bhoggett,
I don't want to piss in anyone's beer, but you might say the announcement is a cynical marketing ploy. By announcing a trade-in price now the obvious aim is to encourage those who might have been tempted to wait for the promised G4 system to buy a G3 Amiga NOW, as they would be getting most of their money back in the trade-in.
I kinda answered this in the forums, but what the heck.
You are right it's a marketing ploy to get the ppl that never upgraded their classic Amigas with the powerPC accelerators because of the price. However, giving the 'comminity' this nice trade in option is not unheard of. It had happened in the past with Phase5.
I will leave it at that. In the end everyone will make their own decisions and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
I know this is old, but... there is a saying/prayer ( depending on how you view it ) that states "grant me the serinity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can(ie... yourself... as in the first person, you being the one saying this***), and the wisdom to know the difference."
Blitter
***I know someone out there is not going to get what I meant and a FW is going to happen. Oh well, I tried to make it as clear as I could. I'm not a master of any language.
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I just hope more clone A1/PPC motherboard manufactures enter the market, especially in the Far East/Australasian region.
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What do they mean "underwrite"?
Hi Jumpship,
Humm.. "underwrite" could be a very direct translation of the danish word "underskrive", which means giving your signature on paper - as in "sign" when you sign an agreement or other sort of papers...
Though I have not heard of anyone at Eyetech being danish - I could be wrong - but usually the danes have sufficient skills when it comes to english to know that the proper wording would be "sign an agreement on a trade-in offer" - if that indeed is the case.
Hope I didn't loose to many in my attempt at explaining things ;-)
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Weird, the word underwrite must be an english word used in Great Britain, if that makes any sense. I live in England and the word is used quite often in this type of situation, you see it on TV adverts and stuff.
Basically the Eyetech page actualy explains the word underwrite imediatly after.
Underwrite = They are taking/risking the cost implications and guarantee you wont be out of pocket (by much).
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Quote:
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What do they mean "underwrite"?
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'Underwrite' is a common insurance expression. It means that we will (under the circumstances we have outlined) guarantee the minimum secondhand value of an A1G3-SE board. We and other participating dealers will of course sell these boards on to new purchasers - as second user boards but with a full 12 months warranty - and obviously at more than the price at which we buy them back. That means that the market price of second user A1G3-SE boards will be above the trade-in level which we have set, so users will probably get more by selling them privately. But if they choose not to sell their boards privately, we will 'underwrite' the minimum trade-in value which they will get.
Of course this offer will only be available to users who purchase the A1G3-SE in advance of the AmigaOne-XE shipping. After that purchasers can choose the type of board which best suits their needs and budgets from the outset.
Alan
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Hi Alan,
When do you think the AmigOneG3-SE (and the AmigaOne-XE) is ready?
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I think AmigaOneG3-SE is 100% ready. Why would it not be?
"The AmigaOneG3-SE will not be shipped to end users until OS4 is ready, but boards for OS4 developers and beta testers are already out in the field. "
And developer boards are identical to end user boards.
According to Eyetech AmigaOne-XE prototypes and CPU cards are also ready.
"The prototype socketed AmigaOne-XE board and the associated plug-in G3 and G4 modules have already been built and tested. "
(but I wonder if the prototype is TeronPX, like the A1.5 proto was the TeronCX)
I expect AmigaOne-XE to be a enchanced/evolution of TeronPX board.
Alan is free to correct me if neededd. ;-)
- ksk
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I wont be getting an inital A1 by any means. Has nothing to do with AmigaOS or the techs behind teh board. Just that, my PII is doing alright atm :)
Might get an XE - could be interesting. - I wouldnt mind trying MacOSX as well... Gee, that looks like a nice OS... specialy for the unix geek!
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I wont be getting an inital A1 by any means. Has nothing to do with AmigaOS or the techs behind teh board. Just that, my PII is doing alright atm :)
Take that! (http://www.plauder-smilies.de/rough/twak.gif)
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Tell me a marketing ploy that *isn't* cynical. Capitalism is, by its very nature, exploitative. In my opinion Eyetech have chosen a maketing ploy which is less cynical than I expected, one that might even get them some new friends. Who knows?
Anybody who doesn't it should live in Cuba. Or North Korea. Or China.
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@AOLMURDER
ROFL:-D :-D :-D
Sometimes I think you could have a complete conversation using those emoticon (smiley) thingies. :-D :lol:
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Rodney, I don't for a minute think your comment is anything less than flame bait, but its not even particularly clever flame bait.
Feel free to either languish with an ancient 50MHz machine that can't even run GL at a decent speed, or even worse, some dodgy emulator with no future on an x86.
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(Mr. Burns) E-e-excelent. (/Mr. Burns)
I'm happy to hear of this. My personal AmigaOne purchase
may now proceed, eventually. I've got the money saved up,
I just need it to be at the dealer now. I've got a dev board
via Forefront to tide me over until then though. :)
Bill Toner
bill@prodatasys.com
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>is there really that big of an advantage of waiting for a G4 board? I see the
>Amiga One SE as a great value and a huge jump in performance. Why would I wait for the XE?
The main difference is the potential of Altivec. It will of course take a bit for
it to be supported buy something (and I don't believe the OS has to do it first, apps
can test the CPU type and offer some Altivec support themselves as well) And also the
option to update to faster than 600MHz chip. There's already faster G3's than that,
and it also offers the possibility of dual G3/G4 CPU modules, though that would
depend a bit more on specific OS support for the process scheduling per chip... And granted
that may be a while, btu at least it offers the possibility, in the event the OS should
go there before we possibly get a G5 motherboard, which would be better than a dualG4
with the current chipset.
And I personally just like to have the potential for future upgrade options.
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Very sweet news about AmigaOne :-D
Alan, thanks for explaining what you mean by "underwrite"
_____________________
redfox
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@Alan (aka Eyetech)
Thanks for the explanation! But just out of interest, why couldn't you have just said that in the orginal statment? I mean, I can't be the only thick person here...
can I??
er.. hello??
oh guess I am :lol:
Cheers!
JS
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hmm??
What are eyetech and Hyperion doing?
For full G4 AltiVec support, you'll need GCC 3.1 which knows very well how to work. Unfortunately, it's not binary compatible to GCC 2.95 (which Hyperion are using now) which means binary incompatible - so I imaging you will see support for G4 only at AOS 5.0 (I think Amiga can, just like Unix, put 2 different libraries without breaking each other on the same path, but not sure...)
Regarding G4 pricing - as much as I know - Apple needs about 200-300 trays of G4 (meaning 200,000-300,000) and I'm pretty sure Motorola pumps out more processors then that, so why all the delay to move to G4?
Also, eyetech could just turn to IBM for the processor supplies - IBM could supply it to them (IBM already manufactures it for Nintendo for their gamecube very cheaply)..
Hetz
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The CPU in the A1 IS an IBM one